Information Networks and Integration: Institutional Influences on Experiences and Persistence of Beginning Students

Karp, Melinda Mechur; Hughes, Katherine L.

New Directions for Community Colleges, n144 p73-82 Win 2008

This article uses data from a qualitative exploratory study at two urban community colleges to examine experiences of beginning students, paying close attention to the influence that institutional information networks have on students' perceptions and persistence. The authors find that students' reported integration, or sense of belonging in the institution, is positively associated with their persistence to a second year of enrollment. This sense of belonging is encouraged by students' involvement in information networks, a group of social ties that helps them understand college life. Moreover, they find that the institutional environment can encourage the creation of these networks through formal mechanisms such as Student Success courses. This finding provides colleges with tools to encourage integration and, potentially, persistence. However, the authors also find that the same structures that promote information networks can serve as inadvertent stratifying mechanisms; colleges therefore need to be attendant to the ways that the institutional environment can discourage as well as encourage student success. (Contains 1 table.)